Use case · anime artist / digital illustrator
Sharp lines, clean colors, no AI hallucinations on character faces. Real-ESRGAN tuned for anime art runs in 10 seconds.
If you've tried Topaz Photo AI or Gigapixel on anime art, you've probably seen what happens: clean lineart turns mushy, character faces drift into uncanny territory, and the soft cel-shading gets oversharpened into noise. Those tools are trained on photographs — anime breaks their model.
Pixelift's anime upscaler pipeline uses Real-ESRGAN with the anime-specific weights, then optionally chains AuraSR V2 for cleaner outlines. The result: a 720p illustration becomes a print-ready 4K version with the linework intact, flat colors staying flat, and screen-tones not destroyed.
The whole thing runs in your browser — drop a PNG or JPG, pick 4× scale, hit upscale. Ten seconds, no install, no $200 desktop license. You can test it on three images per day without signing up. If you create commercially, the Plus plan removes the small watermark and unlocks 8K scale for prints over 24 inches.
Drop your anime image into the uploader
PNG keeps cell-shading sharp; JPG works too. Up to 20MB.
Look for: Hero dropzone on the page
Select 4× scale
720p → 2880px is the sweet spot. Pick 8× only if printing over 36 inches.
Look for: Scale buttons row
Choose the "Portrait" or "Anime" preset
Routes to Real-ESRGAN anime weights instead of the photo model.
Look for: Style selector dropdown
Click Upscale
About 8-15 seconds depending on input resolution.
Look for: Purple button below preview
Download the result
PNG with transparency preserved. Right-click to save.
Look for: Download button on the result panel
Why Pixelift
Topaz Labs costs $300 and produces smudged anime. Free alternatives (Waifu2x demo, Upscayl) queue for minutes or require GPU. Pixelift gives you anime-tuned Real-ESRGAN in the browser, 10 seconds, free for casual use.
Yes. The anime model is trained on a mix of digital cel-shaded art and scanned manga pages. For manga specifically, also try the "B&W manga" preset which preserves screentone patterns better than the default.
No — Real-ESRGAN is "faithful" upscaling. It enlarges existing pixels with neural interpolation but does not regenerate features. If you want stylistic changes, use the Style Transfer tool instead.
Anime art with clean vector-like lines compresses well at small sizes but expands aggressively at 4× — a 2MB source easily becomes a 15MB PNG. That's normal. Use the Image Compressor afterward if you need it under 10MB.
Currently one image at a time on the free tier. The Plus plan adds bulk processing via API access — 50 images in parallel. Contact support if you need >500 images/day.
Same underlying algorithm (Real-ESRGAN), but Pixelift runs the production-tuned weights on cloud GPUs (~10s) vs Waifu2x's slower web demo or the multi-hour install of NMKD's desktop tool. You also get free 720p output without queueing.
No. Uploaded images are processed on-demand, deleted within 30 days, and never used to train models. Pixelift is GDPR-compliant and servers are in the EU (Hetzner Nuremberg).
No signup required for the first try. 5 free credits at registration + 3 daily.
Open AI Upscaler